Isack Hadjar given ticking off by former F1 driver after apologising to his Red Bull team

Isack Hadjar has been told to calm down after a United States Grand Prix weekend where the Red Bull driver repeatedly lost his temper on the team radio. The criticism comes from ex-F1 driver Ralph Schumacher even though Hadjar had already admitted after qualifying in Austin that he owed his engineers an apology.

Speaking on Sky Deutschland, the former F1 driver was brief and to the point: "I like Hadjar, but he needs to take it down a notch." The 22-year-old's aggressive tone did not sit well with Schumacher, after the Frenchman had complained loudly about his car's missing power just one day after saying sorry.

Hadjar's frustration started early in the US GP weekend. He sent several angry radio messages during free practice as he battled the balance of his RB22, calling it "undriveable" on Friday, but he recovered to qualify third, just a few hundredths behind teammate Max Verstappen.

After that session he owned up to how he had behaved. "I owe the team an apology because I was very rough with the engineers," Hadjar said. He also acknowledged how hard the engineers work to give him a good car, and blamed the car's excessive sliding for making it so hard to find the right operating window.

The stewards also took notice of his temper. Late in FP3, Hadjar locked up into Turn 1, abandoned his lap and then swerved towards Alex Albon. The stewards found the Williams driver had moved to the outside to avoid impeding him. They called Hadjar's move "retaliatory action" and gave him a formal warning, adding that he would have faced a harsher penalty had it been dangerous or caused a collision, as we reported in FIA delivers verdict on Hadjar after heated incident with Albon at US GP.

Sunday did not improve his mood. His first response to the order to let Verstappen through was "I can't let by", which he explained afterwards, saying "everything went wrong" in the race.

The criticism needs to be seen against what Hadjar has delivered. His tally of 105 points and two podiums and is within two-tenths of Verstappen in qualifying on average in only his second F1 season. Red Bull have already extended his contract and the team look a strong pairing for 2027.

It has been argued that Hadjar's attitude has to improve, and that if his temper becomes a pattern, Red Bull could reconsider their position on Liam Lawson.

Lawson already knows the RB22. He raced it for three Grands Prix this season while Hadjar was injured. His immediate concern, though, is Racing Bulls. It has been widely reported that Lawson and Arvid Lindblad will be kept for 2027, but nothing has been confirmed, and Nikola Tsolov remains in the frame. Lawson himself has hinted that he could leave the Red Bull family after 2027 for a team that gives him a better chance of winning. Whether Hadjar's temper ever becomes part of that conversation is, for now, an open question.